BSNL plan to go for Huawei gears raises security concerns

Sources in communications ministry conceded there is pressure to keep Chinese vendors out of sensitive projects on security grounds.

KOLKATA: State-owned BSNL will shortly award a crucial equipment contract to China's Huawei for expanding its countrywide Internet network that may stoke fresh security concerns over procurement of telecom gear from Chinese vendors.

BSNL executives with direct knowledge told ETthat the network will be capable of handling data, voice and video traffic, and would be the principal communications backbone carrying sensitive personal information of Indian citizens for a host of central broadband initiatives like the national optic fibre network (NOFN), the National Knowledge Network and the government's ambitious Aadhar programme that plans to give a unique identity to the country's 1.2 billion residents.

Sources in the communications ministry conceded there is pressure to keep Chinese network vendors out of sensitive projects on security grounds although the Indian government is yet to take any definite stand on a recent report by a US Congress panel about Huawei and ZTE posing a security threat owing to their reported links with the Chinese military. Both Huawei and ZTE have dismissed these allegations by the US.

BSNL's chairman & managing director RK Upadhyay did not reply to ET's specific email query on the security implications of buying equipment from Huawei, but asserted that the staterun telco ensures strict compliance with DoT's security guidelines in all its procurements.

"BSNL, in all its procurements, follows security guidelines issued by DoT," wrote Upadhyay in a text message, adding that "this process is also in accordance with the company's procurement manual". The telco, it is learnt, had little option since Huawei and ZTE were the sole bidders for upgrading its IP core network, internally known as `MNGT' or MPLS-based next generation transport system.

State-owned research body CDoT has already exhorted the telecom department to isolate Huawei and ZTE from sensitive government projects on grounds that both companies have been barred from competing in US tenders on security grounds, following which several European countries, Australia and Canada have also reportedly stopped buying from them.